Cleanup continues after Hurricane Ian

As cleanup continues throughout the region, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Monday that nearly $4 billion has been earmarked to help the region recover from Hurricane Ian.

Hurricane Ian struck Southwest Florida as a category 4 storm, killing more than 100 people in Florida and destroying or damaging thousands of homes in Lee, Charlotte, Sarasota and DeSoto counties — along with two dozen other Florida counties.

Subsequent flooding from the hurricane inundated houses, making many uninhabitable.

FEMA announced Monday it is still providing individual help to residents of 26 counties in the state.

"Nearly $3.99 billion in federal grants, disaster loans and flood insurance payments have been provided to the state of Florida and to households there to help Floridians jumpstart their recovery following Hurricane Ian," it stated in an email.

It has different funding tranches for the effort.

"FEMA has provided $833 million to households and $415 million to the state for emergency response, while the U.S. Small Business Administration has provided $1.28 billion in disaster loans and the National Flood Insurance Program has paid $1.46 billion in claims," it said.

At the same time, cleanup continues. Some areas are almost finished; others have months to go.

The city of Venice has closed up one location for waste collection.

It announced Monday that Crowder Gulf, which was collecting debris in Venice, finished its collection and has "restored and closed the debris management site located at Wellfield Park off Pinebrook Road."

The city stated in a news release that Crowder Gulf has been heavily involved.

"This extensive debris project lasted 60 days and involved collection throughout (Venice) public streets, city parks and some gated neighborhoods that chose to participate," it said. "In total, Crowder Gulf collected 141,833 cubic yards of vegetative debris and 6,891 cubic yards of C&D (construction & demolition) materials, with a reduced mulch haul-out of 43,115 cubic yards and a 3,938 cubic yard haul-out of reduced C&D."

Venice officials noted there is still "additional debris" that may need to be collected.

"City residents are encouraged to contact the Public Works Department at 941-486-2422 to schedule a bulk pickup of any remaining materials," it said. "The city would like to thank all of our residents, volunteers and business partners who worked together to make this debris cleanup a success and who continue to support the community recovery efforts from Hurricane Ian."

Sarasota County had collected 3.3 million cubic yards of debris as of its last count.

Charlotte County's debris contractor had collected more than 3.5 million cubic yards of storm debris as of Sunday, according to a news release.

"As of 9 a.m., Monday, Dec. 19, AshBritt has delivered more than 74,178 loads containing 3,576,403 cubic yards of debris to three county staging sites since collection began Oct. 7," the county said in the news release.

The county estimates it will collect 4.1 million cubic yards of debris by March.

The deadline for placing storm debris for collection is Dec. 31.

Charlotte County has a dashboard with a heat map of where debris has been collected. It can be viewed at CharlotteCountyFL.gov/debris.